The Critique And Reconstruction On Bioethics From The Perspective Of Ethics Of The Body

Bioethics bases on universal and rational principle, and follows dualistic mode of thinking. Therefore the body has been neglected over a long period of time. With the development and application of life sciences and new biological technology, as well as the influence of post-modernism, the practical validity of bioethics has been disintegrated both in practice and theory. Ethics of the body basing on embodied self had been put forward to reconstruct bioethics and provide a new perspective. It's very important to understand the corporality and ambiguity with the approach of feminism and phenomenology. In some sense, the body here has the same meaning as Merleau-Ponty's body, which is a mixture of both physical and mental body. It is a body which has perception and experience in an open world and multi-situation. Therefore, the formation of embodied self seems to be changeable and unstable, and the ethics of the body pays more attention to experience, difference and special situation. The ethics of the body criticizes and reconstructs bioethics from three main aspects, that is, to claim undecidability, to break decisiveness, and to focus on particularity. In China, ethics of the body has a very important practical meaning to reconstruct the new approach of bioethics, search for the balance between ethics norm and technology, and pay more attention to the value of disadvantaged groups .